Plan For Playhouse Is Near Agreement

Coconut Grove Theater Would Have Home In Development.

April 29, 2005|By Jack Zink Theater Writer

A plan to replace Miami's Coconut Grove Playhouse, first proposed in the late 1990s, is back on the table and could be ready for agreement by early summer.

Playhouse board chairman Mitchell R. Less confirmed Wednesday that talks are nearing completion with a developer to replace the current, decaying building with a modern twin theater complex, while either preserving the current faade or replacing it with a historically accurate copy. Built as a movie theater in 1926, the playhouse has been used for live theater since 1953.

Less would not identify the developer, saying others are in line if necessary. He said the strategy is to sell the property and allow the developer to build a low-rise residential and commercial development on the north side, while the nonprofit playhouse corporation retains ownership or a 99-year lease on the new theater building.

Among the concepts still being explored is clearing the entire site for an underground parking level. The new theater would rise again on the south end, with private development on the north side.

The goal is to use the bulk of the sale money to create an endowment for the theater. The cost of building the theater would be paid by $20 million from two separate bonds the Grove has received in the past year.